A few updates regarding my book, Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew:

First, I am now taking pre-orders for signed copies on my website via Paypal. The cover price for the book is $14.95, but I’m making it available at a discounted price of $12. Recently, Amazon dropped their price to $10.17, so you can also pre-order it there. If you order it now, I will ship it to you as soon as I receive copies, which should be in early September.

Also, I recently received the Foreword to the book, written by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. I was very humbled by the kind words he wrote. A few excerpts:

As I read Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, it seemed to me that I was in the presence of someone who was hard at work on the creation of a beautiful mosaic or an exquisite tapestry.  In this book, Eric Sammons presents us with a fascinating and truthful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a picture he fashions for us step by slow step from material found primarily in the Gospel of Saint Matthew but with fitting additions taken from other parts of Holy Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, and from many writers in the Catholic tradition, as well…

I suggest that no one read this book quickly, for although it is not lengthy, it contains a great deal of information as well as many opportunities for prayer and meditation…Working through Sammons’s book is like taking a course by a well informed and highly intelligent teacher.  At the same time it is like making a retreat led by a prayerful and spiritual retreat master…

Sammons’s work is a very serious and well-thought-out attempt to teach us once again just who is being proclaimed in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. It is a slow, steady  journey through this Gospel, a journey that pauses over and over again to examine in a thoughtful and prayerful way the names and titles given to our Lord in this Gospel.  In each name we find something significant.  Every title, we learn, offers us a slightly different way to look at Christ, a new prism through which to see him. What we glean from each name or title contributes to the total picture of our Savior, a picture that gradually becomes clearer and clearer until it is luminous…

I hope that in the years to come [Sammons] will follow this book up with later volumes on the other evangelists.  I also hope that we will see more and more books like this, intelligent, erudite, yet accessible, on our Divine Savior and his life and personality.

I was also quite honored to have Archbishop Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., recommend my book:

Drawing on his own faith journey and his personal experience, Eric Sammons demonstrates how the lived Word of God — reflected in the lives and writings of the saints and prayers of the Church can help us to better know Jesus and to strive to form our daily lives into his likeness. Who Is Jesus Christ? is a work of devotion and readers should find it both inspiring and encouraging.

Needless to say, I’m getting more and more excited as we get closer to the publication date!